What is the most underrated event of the past,
and why is it so much more significant than people understand?

When the Gregorian Reform
was launched at the dawn of the second millennium, the papacy’s agenda was
unequivocal. In an effort to centralise power and re-establish authority, a
succession of popes both before and after Gregory VII (d. 1085), the reform’s namesake,
introduced changes designed to free the Church from lay control. Secular rulers
were stripped of their sacerdotal functions and clerics came to be the sole
representatives of the Church, rather than the laity, as simony, investiture,
and nicolaitism (i.e., clerical marriage) came under attack. The most
far-reaching and long-lasting repercussions of these reforms, however, yet the
most overlooked by historians, was the social upheaval caused by enforced
clerical celibacy and its particularly devastating effect on women. The
relentless onslaughts on clerical marriage instigated a social revolution that
spanned the European continent, provoking riots for centuries, and, most
perniciously, demonising half the world’s population as the reformers campaigned
against women in order to make marriage less appealing. Misogyny has been woven
so deeply into history that its nuanced causes and effects at any given time
can be difficult to discern. But an analysis of the rhetoric used by reformers
to vilify clerical wives and women in general can trace the revitalised
hostility towards women beginning in the High Middle Ages to these reforms.

For the first thousand years
of Christianity, clerical marriage was common practice. Despite various church
councils promulgating the ideal of celibacy, beginning with the Synod of Elvira
in the fourth century which declared that all clerics were to “abstain from
conjugal relations with their wives”[1],
deacons, priests, bishops, and even popes continued to marry and have children.
The frequent repetition at subsequent councils of the need for celibacy evinces
the lack of obedience to these decrees. Celibacy had not yet been declared
superior to marriage and so married priests retained at least as many
supporters as there were for celibate ones. Indeed, even celibacy advocates
believed that a married priest should continue to care for his wife - but live
with her like a sister - because ordination could not dissolve marriage.[2]
Priests’ wives enjoyed a respectable social status as clerical marriage was a
recognised social institution. Furthermore, women were given the final say as
to whether or not their husbands could be ordained.[3]
This interaction between male clergy and women encouraged healthy gender
relations compared to the polarisation that occurred in later centuries, as
shall be seen. In 829, the Reform Synod of Paris complained that “in some
provinces it happens that women press around the altar, touch the holy vessels,
hand the clerics the priestly vestments, indeed even dispense the body and
blood of the Lord to the people.”[4]
It was around this time that clerics’ wives were entitled deaconess, priestess,
and bishopess. Although the dismay is unmissable, the Synod’s account attests
to the greater role women in the early medieval period played in religious
spheres.

This all changed when the
Gregorian Reform began. As the Church sought to sever ties with the laity and gain
hierarchical control over its clergy, women became the greatest obstacle to
reform since clerical marriage bridged the gap between ordained clerks and
laypeople. Gregory VII’s aims involved “sundering the commerce between the
clergy and women through an eternal anathema”[5]
and in the end, women bore the brunt of it. The revived defamation of women
began as the reform clergy’s propaganda fixated on female sexuality. Peter
Damian set a high standard for the misogynistic slander that characterised their
campaign against women:

I
speak to you, O charmers of the clergy, appetising flesh of the devil, that
castaway from Paradise, poison of minds, death of souls, companions of the very
stuff of sin, the cause of our ruin… come now, hear me harlots, prostitutes,
with your lascivious kisses, you wallowing places for fat pigs, couches for
unclean spirits…[6]

The idea that women are
“unclean” and, as such, impediments to righteousness lies at the heart of the
Church’s denigration of women and has roots stretching back to ancient times. Soon
after the Gregorian Reform began, the works of Aristotle returned to dominant
thought and gave reformers fresh insight into the subordination of women. Aristotelian
biology was met with unqualified acceptance by Church thinkers who had been
surmising the inferiority of women since Gregory VII and his cohorts started
their campaign against women. Aristotle’s hierarchy placed women beneath men as
their faulty and unequal counterparts. Marriage was put forward as inferior to
male communities of academia and monasticism as well as being the relationship
of two unequal partners. As the years passed, generations of clergymen were
brought up in an environment of not only contempt for women but fear of them
and their sexuality as well.

Practical tactics
accompanied the verbal slander. In 1089, princes were allowed to enslave the
wives of clerics and a few years later, the Count of Flanders was given permission
to imprison them.[7]
In 1108, Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, enabled bishops to seize the wives
of priests as their property.[8]
And as early as 1022, the wives of Hamburg canons were forced to leave their town.[9]
The greatest blow, however, came in 1139 at the Second Lateran Council when, for
the first time, marriage was not only forbidden but declared mutually exclusive
to ordination. The sanctity of marriage completely disregarded, priestly
marriages were now void and women who had been legal wives turned into
concubines overnight.

Despite the “historical
amnesia”, as Mary T. Malone says, “about the very vocal opposition to mandatory
celibacy,”[10]
there is overwhelming evidence of resistance to these reforms. The Anonymous of
York, writing around 1100, provided outspoken support for married priests as
well as the rights of their children to be legitimate. Even earlier, Lambert of
Hersfield ridiculed the papacy’s attempts to make priests live like angels and
asserted that the clergy would rather give up their offices than their wives.
He advised the pope to summon angels from heaven instead to take their places.[11]
When emissaries across Europe were charged with the task of enforcing the celibacy
decrees, they were met with an irate, and often violent, audience. The Bishop
of Paris had to seek royal protection from the incensed clerics after he was
driven out of a church “with jeers and blows”, the indignant clergy of Rouen
assailed their Archbishop with stones when he tried to make them give up their
wives, and Gregory VII reported that the infuriated Cambrai clergy had burnt a
celibacy proponent alive.[12]
Fearing for their lives, some bishops in Northern Italy refused to issue
celibacy decrees.[13]
Even after priestly marriage was nullified, clerks clung to the comforts of partnership
for centuries. As late as 1542, Albrecht of Brandenburg lamented: “I know that
all my priests are living in concubinage, but what should I do? If I forbid
them, they either want to have wives or become Lutherans.”[14]
After their attempts to enslave the concubines of priests, the reform clergy sought
to get them excommunicated, forbidden church entry, and denied a church burial.

Clerical wives were not the
only victims, however. Eventually all women were demonised for their sexuality,
even celibate nuns. Prior to the reforms, women religious enjoyed a relative
equality with monks. Double monasteries of men and women were frequently led by
abbesses who were some of the most powerful women of the period. Convents enabled
women to have authority over men, engage in magisterium
vocis (public preaching), become familiar with scripture and the classics,
and even hear confession, with no indication that witnesses like Bede viewed it
as abnormal.[15]
As more monks were ordained and came under greater influence of the papacy, however,
they were further removed from the laity and wanted less and less to do with
their female counterparts. As one abbot wrote:

We
and our whole community of canons, recognizing that the wickedness of women is
greater than all the other wickedness of the world… have unanimously decreed
for the safety of our souls, no less than that of our bodies and goods, that we
will on no account receive any more sisters to the increase of our perdition,
but will avoid them like poisonous animals.[16]

Monks, priests, and bishops,
who now saw women as opponents to the holy, took away their autonomy as women’s
orders fell under their supervision. Moving into the High Middle Ages, convents
were no longer centres of education and activity but provided a cloistered and
contemplative life for women. Even Hildegard of Bingen, the great German
mystic, had to engage in a “rhetoric of diminishment” to downplay her sex by
emphasising that her accomplishments came solely from visions.[17]
The powerful abbesses of the early Middle Ages were now obsolescent.

The shift in attitude
towards women is most telling in literature. Christopher Brooke describes a poetic
genre in the twelfth century that debated whether or not the clerk was a better
lover than the knight; the victor was usually the clerk since they were the
ones composing the poems.[18]
A couple centuries later, Chaucer reveals the changing attitudes of the clergy.
Rather than wooing women, clerics spent their time defaming them as the
frustrated Wife of Bath describes:

For take my word for it, there is no libel
On women that the clergy will
not paint,
Except when writing of a
woman-saint,
But never good of other women,
though.
Who called the lion savage? Do
you know?
By God, if women had but
written stories
Like those the clergy keep in
oratories,
More had been written of man’s
wickedness
Than all the sons of Adam
could redress. [19]

Clerical
animosity towards women became even more pronounced during the witch craze. “It
was a short step from the idea that female sexuality was dangerous and an
instrument of the devil to the idea that female sexuality itself could be a
demonic power” as Karen Torjensen says.[20]
It is hardly a coincidence that the authors of Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches) were clergymen. James
Sprenger and Henry Kramer authored the witch-hunting manual at the end of the
15th century as they sought to prove that women were sleeping with
the Devil.[21]
Witchcraft was said to originate with carnal lust; the besmirching of female
sexuality in the centuries leading up to the witch craze thus made women prime
targets. When Pope Innocent VIII issued “The Witches’ Bull” they barely stood a
chance and hundreds of thousands of women were accused of witchcraft and burnt
at the stake.

Misogyny
is too widespread to be solely attributed to one event but the Gregorian Reform
had clear consequences for women that carry on into the present day. The
domestic tragedies that enforced clerical celibacy surely produced can only be
imagined. On top of broken homes, women lost the opportunity of living active,
learned lives in convents and once Aristotle’s ideas about marriage reemerged,
domestic life was no doubt a disappointing alternative. The significance of
these events today can be seen in the Catholic Church as the debate over
clerical celibacy remains a highly controversial topic, and the suppression of
women even more so. More broadly, there is still a fixation on female sexuality
in secular culture as well as in the church. It is sorrowful to speculate what
the last millennium might have been like if the increasing power of women in
the early Middle Ages had not been reversed. Even so, there is a wealth of
history to be discovered now that the past is open to feminist critique. The
contributions made by women to the monastic revival and early religious orders,
for example, can be fully appreciated as a female accomplishment rather than
their involvement being a reflection of women’s responses to ideals set up by
men alone. Change in one’s perception of the past is often the antecedent to
change in one’s vision for the future: a deeper understanding of misogyny, as
seen in the Middle Ages, can help identify the problems still facing women
today and encourage people to seek justice for all women in the future.

At this joyful liturgy, two faith communities in Sarasota came together with their pets to praise God for the gift of divine love and healing that God's beautiful creatures bring into our lives and world.

The dogs were fully attentive and participated with a few wonderful barks!

It was a definite first for all who came!

The dogs came with their human families and were all sizes and shapes.

Loving God, we ask you to bless these precious pets.

Blessed are you, our God, you are present in glory in all our pets.

By the power of your love, enable our pet to live healthy and happy lives

according to you plan.

May we always rejoice in your goodness reflected in all God's creatures.

Pastor Greg shared a touching story about his cat, whom he called a "cat in an angel suit," who woke him up from a sound sleep when his wife was seriously ill. His wife later died that same day.

All were invited to share stories of how their pets reflect God's love and healing during dialogue homily.

Community prayed blessing over pets

Pastor Greg and Bridget Mary lead Ecumenical Liturgy.We gave treats out to dogs after shared homily. Some dogs and owners left, others stayed for the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

See Attached Homily Starter and Liturgy below:ECUMENICAL BLESSING OF
THE ANIMALS

Pastor Greg: Story:
"an angel wrapped in a cat"

Mindy Lou Simmons: Song-"Goddog"

Bridget Mary: Blessing
of Pets: Hold or pet your animal and repeat

Franciscan Blessing of
Animals:

Blessed are you, loving
God, makerof all living creatures. You called forth fish in the sea,
birds in the air and animals on the land. You inspired St. Francis to call all
of them his brothers and sisters. We ask you to bless these pets. By the power
of your love, enable it to live according to you plan. May we always praise you
for all your beauty in creation. Blessed are you, our God, in all you
creatures. Amen.

GREETINGPresider: In the name of God our creator, and of Jesus our brother, and of the Holy Spirit our wisdom,All: Amen.Presider: God, Lover of Creation, is with us.All: And with all.

OPENING PRAYER Presider 1: Nurturing God, You embrace each person and every living thing with delight. May we live our oneness with all creation in Your Heart of Love.Presider 2: We rejoice that you speak to us each day through Earth’s creatures, especially these pets gathered here today. We ask you to bless us all in the circle of life. We ask this through Jesus, our brother and the Holy Spirit, our wisdom.All: Amen.

Blessed are you, loving God, maker of all living creatures. You called forth fish in the sea, birds in the air and animals on the land. You inspired St. Francis to call all of them his brothers and sisters. We ask you to bless these pets. By the power of your love, enable it to live according to you plan. May we always praise you for all your beauty in creation. Blessed are you, our God, in all you creatures. Amen.

ALL: We believe in God, the fountain of life, flowing through every being. We believe in Jesus, the Christ, who reflects the face of God and the fullness of humanity. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the breath of God in the cosmos, who calls us to care for Earth as the common home we share with all creation. We believe that every living being is our sister and brother and a reflection of God’s goodness in the circle of life. Amen to loving actions on behalf of environmental healing and transformation!

GENERAL INTERCESSIONS

Presider 1: Mindful that God speaks today to us through the sufferings of all beings on Earth, we pray …

After each petition, Response is:O Holy One, may we work for healing for our earth and justice for all.

Presider 2: Healing God, we trust that you hear our prayers. May we celebrate the beauty of nature and work to heal our Earth. We make this prayer through Jesus, our brother, in union with the Holy Spirit.

All: Amen.

PREPARATION OF THE GIFTS

(Please gather around the table)

Presiders (raise bread and wine):

Ever gentle God, as co-creators of our planet, we offer you the gifts of bread, wine and our lives. May we celebrate our oneness with all creatures great and small in the family of God. We ask this through Christ Sophia, the wisdom of God. Amen.

Presider 1: Pray that we become one with all in the Cosmic Christ.

All: We are gathered as a community to celebrate the gift of life pulsating around us in the glories of Nature everywhere.

EUCHARISTIC PRAYER

Presider 2: Our loving God, who speaks to us through wild flowers, butterflies and our beloved pets, dwells on Earth,

ALL: And in every living being.

Presider 1: Lift up your hearts.

ALL: We lift them up to our Creator in whom all beings live.

Presider 2: Let us give thanks for the Source of Life.

ALL: It is right to give the Living God thanks and praise.

ALL: Holy, holy, holy God, Spirit of love and peace, Earth’s abundance reflects your glory: Hosanna in the highest. Blessed are all living things who reflect the beauty of God. Hosanna in the highest.

Voice One: Holy One, we bring you these gifts that they may become the Christ Presence. Fill us with tenderness toward our sisters and brothers, our pets here with us today.

(All extend hands) ALL: On the night before he died, while at supper with his friends, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke the bread and gave it to them saying, “Take this, all of you, and eat. This is my body. Do this in memory of me.” (Pause)

In the same way, Jesus took the cup of wine. He said the blessing, gave the cup to his friends and said, “Take this all of you and drink Do this in memory of me.”

The Mystery of Faith:

ALL: We are one body, in Christ in communion with all creation.

Voice Two: Christ of the Cosmos, we thank you that there are 18 galaxies for every person, that our bodies are made of stardust and that every place we turn, you are present, loving us. You call us “beloved” and invite us to join the dance of creation, one with all living things in your divine embrace. We rejoice that our beloved pets speak your words of living presence to us each day.

Voice Three: Christ of the Cosmos, we remember all within our world and church who are working for environmental healing, human rights and justice for all.

Voice Four: Christ of the Cosmos, we remember St. Francis who sang canticles to brother sun and sister moon. We remember our sisters and brothers who have cared for earth’s creatures and have blessed our world with their loving service to God’s people most in need. May we praise you in union with them and give you glory by working for a more just and peaceful world.

GREAT AMEN

ALL: Through Christ, with Christ, in Christ, in unity with the Holy spirit, all glory, honor and praise to you, loving God forever and ever.Sing: Amen, Amen, Amen.ALL: Prayer of Jesus (“Our Father and Mother”)

Sign of Peace: Group joins hands in circle in symbolic “hug” that goes out to all the creatures and all people as they sing this song of peace:Let there be peace on earth (sung)

COMMUNION

Presider 1: This is the Cosmic Christ in whom all creation lives and moves and has its being. All are invited to partake in this banquet of love and to celebrate our oneness with all living beings on theplanet.

First, there is a disconnect between the pope's rhetoric about equality and the institutional Roman Catholic Church's practice with regard to women. It was unmistakable during the televised masses and meetings. Hundreds of robed men — priests, bishops, cardinals and their successor seminarians — were visible at every turn. The principal of a school and the head of a social service agency were among the very few women in evidence...

To be a decision-maker in Catholicism, to have jurisdiction, requires ordination. Women are prohibited from being ordained because they are not men — a tautology postmodern people reject. Equality is equality. Women's ordination is important not so women can dress up like men on ceremonial occasions and celebrate the sacraments. It is to give women voice and vote in every church decision from parish to synod. Women's participation will erase the impression that some people, namely men, are more equal than others because of gender, race, class and the like. That could change the world.

Second, the pope needs to make good on his promise to survivors of clergy sexual abuse...To commend bishops — some of whom covered up for their brother priests and/or moved them around to avoid prosecution — and to suggest that God weeps is inadequate and insulting. It is time to rout out bishops who act illegally and to create structures of accountability to prevent future problems...

Finally, it is time to end the gay charade in the Roman Catholic Church. The sea of men in every church and papal meeting during the U.S. visit underscored a homosocial power structure. It is an open secret that a high percentage of clergy and religious leaders are same-sex loving people, whether sexually active or not. For those same men to collude in anti-LGBTIQ efforts, including legislation and theology, is morally repugnant. A papal step next step would be to speak openly and frankly about the range of sex/gender options among Catholics and help people see the many healthy, good, natural and holy ways there are to love. Stop wasting church money on anti-marriage legislation. Change doctrine to keep young gay people from committing suicide because they internalize the church's immoral teachings against their love...

Mary E. Hunt is co-director of the Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual (WATER). Her email is mhunt@hers.com.

"The Blessed Virgin Mary could have appeared on the White House Lawn during Pope Francis’ US visit and no one would have noticed. It was non-stop Francis across the media, social and traditional—not to mention huge disruptions of daily life in three major cities. While many are poped out, I highlight two major Catholic events that took place during the same week lest they pass, like the BVM might have, without our attention.

Gender Justice in CatholicismFive hundred people gathered from twenty countries in Philadelphia days before Francis’ visit to celebrate decades of struggle for feminist ministry and women’s equality in the Catholic Church. The 40th anniversary of the Women’s Ordination Conference provided a great occasion to lead the umbrella group, Women’s Ordination Worldwide, to assess progress and map strategies under the rubric of “Gender, Gospel, and Global Justice"...Full disclosure: I myself lectured on the achievements of the movement, especially our success in avoiding being coopted by a kyriarchal church. Ordination is a stated goal that some Catholic women have reached by taking the ordination process into their own hands, as with Roman Catholic Womenpriests and the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests. The movement’s major achievements include creating many forms of feminist ministry and theology—as theologian Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza explained—replacing parishes with base communities, developing inclusive language and imagery, and building respectful egalitarian relationships among ourselves.

There is abundant reason to celebrate and so we did.

A highlight of the event was Mercy Sister Theresa Kane’s presentation and the awards given in her name. Theresa is widely revered for her 1979 graceful speech to Francis’ predecessor Pope John Paul II. She famously welcomed him to the U.S. by calling for women’s full participation in the ministry of the church (otherwise known as ordination). He was appalled, an emotion that set off a Vatican chain reaction of anti-women, (including anti-nun) activities that persist to the present. At this WOC/WOW event, Theresa reiterated and elaborated on her position in an open letter to Francis. Alas, thirty-six years later, while her words were cheered in Philadelphia, the letter fell on closed minds in Rome.

Another conference high point was a panel entitled “Equal in Faith” chaired deftly byInterfaith Voices host Maureen Fielder. Jewish, Mormon, Muslim, Anglican, and Catholic women made clear that religious sexism is practiced in many settings. But it was equally clear that once progress is made (as with Reconstructionist Judaism, for example) the whole community gains. Several male former priests and one still active in ministry (who was relieved later of his pastoral duties) explained the price they have paid for their support for women’s ordination. Their solidarity was more than welcome. Their loss of privilege, while painful, pales in light of countless women’s exclusion from ever exercising ordained ministry. (Not surprisingly, the four men received far more secular press attention than the conference itself.)

Woven throughout the meeting were prayer services and liturgies, including a shared Eucharist, that demonstrated the advances Catholic women are making in creating new, inclusive forms of faith that make sense in postmodernity. There was no rote repetition of the rubrics of the Mass. Instead, the planners offered creative, imaginative, and uplifting experiences of worship that would benefit the whole church if only…There wasn’t a vestment in sight that weekend in Philadelphia. Deo gratias.We danced, sometimes the best thing for body and soul in the face of overwhelming odds. As the papal visit unfolded, it was clear that there was no competing with the power of the Vatican on the uneven turf we occupy. Nonetheless, five hundred people went home energized from Philadelphia confident that the struggle for Catholic women’s equality has just begun..."